Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Making twisted wiring harnesses with a hand drill

My dad learned this trick from a stereo installer when he worked at a Honda dealership. If you use similarly-sized wires, the resulting twist pattern is very uniform and professional-looking. Cut off a bunch of pieces of wire, then stuff all of the ends into a the drill chuck and clamp it down. Start the drill turning, and use your other hand to keep tension on the wires.

In this case, I made a wiring harness with a stereo audio cable and two power conductors.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 24, 2011 at 10:05 PM

    Heh, I've done this to untwist cat5 when I didn't have spare wire the right gauge for projects. I'm a dad now, guess my kids will learn from me too! :-)

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  2. TannerLeeSeptember 10, 2013 at 9:53 AM

    That method will subject the conductors to some pretty heavy strain, and the harness will also try to untwist itself.

    There's a similar method you can do with a drill where each wire is passed into a fishing swivel and those swivels are, in turn, attached to a board and a post that goes in the drill chuck. The wires are wrapped around eachother in a spiral and the lay of the wire will make them stay put without damage to the inner conductors.

    Don't "twist" your wires.

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